Jodie Foster made headlines at the 2013 Golden Globes after giving a passionate speech about her acting career and family, in which she cited her former female partner -- Cydney Bernard -- and their two sons, and later, backstage, she talked more about her professional life.

The 50-year-old former child star, two-time Oscar-winning actress and director, who had spoken at the January 13 ceremony after receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement (check out a transcript), clarified that she is not retiring from show business.

"You'd have to drag me behind a team of horses," Foster told reporters. "No, I'm not retiring from acting. I'd like to be directing tomorrow. If you have something that's perfect for me, I'd like to be directing tomorrow so no, I feel, I'm actually more into it than I've ever been."

Foster began her career as a child star in the late 1960s, appearing on programs such as "The Doris Day Show" and "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color." As an adult, she won two Oscars -- for "The Silence of the Lambs" and "The Accused."

Foster made her big-screen directorial debut with the 1991 movie "Little Man Tate" and in 2011, she directed Mel Gibson in "The Beaver," which was a box office flop.

"People change," Foster said. "Change is important and hopefully I'll be doing different things than I did when I was three years old and six years old and 10 years old and 20 years old ... my work is evolving."

"Look, I feel like acting has been this amazing film school for me," she added. "I got to learn from these amazing artists and I'm really looking to directing more and spending more time using all of the things that I've learned and the things that I feel and that are about me and that express me in that way through directing."

2. She feels like she is "graduating" from something.

"The speech kind of speaks for itself," Foster told reporters. "It's a big, long career and it's not just a career, it's friendships and relationships. I guess this really is one of the first lifetime achievement awards I've ever gotten. And it does feel like it's a graduation. I feel like I'm graduating from something. I'm graduating from high school or college or something. It's a big moment and I wanted to say, you know, what's most on my heart."

3. Her love for film is partially due to her mother.

Foster, who mentioned her mother in her Golden Globes speech, talked about her again backstage.

"My mom is an amazing inspiration for me," she said. "She picked me up from school and took me to see foreign films, sometimes two or three. She wouldn't let me do my homework because she really wanted me to see movies. She passed that along to me and I'm grateful that she wanted me to be respected. That was her number one goal for me and I think that that permeated my early career."

4. She thinks Meryl Streep is "the greatest."

While Foster and Meryl Steep have never acted on screen together before, Foster praised the actress, saying: "I'm sorry, she's the greatest and she does something that's beyond acting, honestly."

Streep has won three Oscars -- most recently in 2012 -- and has been nominated for one 17 times. She holds the record for having the most nods. (Check out 10 major Oscar records.)

5. She loves Mel Gibson, despite his personal troubles.

In 2011, Mel Gibson made headlines due to an ugly custody battle he and his ex-girlfriend fought over their baby daughter. An expletive and racial-slur-filed rant the actor made against her was heard in audio recordings that were posted online.

Foster and Gibson have been close friends since they starred in the 1994 film "Maverick" and the actress has stood by her friend several times through the years, even after his 2006 DUI tirade in which he hurled anti-Semitic and sexist comments at the arresting police officers.

After the 2013 Golden Globes, Foster again defended her friend, who was seen cheering for her while she made her speech at the ceremony.

"I know Mel Gibson extremely well and he's someone that I love, that I've worked with, that I respect and it's not difficult to say that, you know?" she said. "It's very easy to say that. The man that I know is a true and loyal friend and considerate, loving and I think it's important that when people are struggling, that you not run away from them if you love them."

6. She identifies with her younger co-stars -- including Kristen Stewart.

"I look at the room tonight, Kristen Stewart and Claire Danes, Jennifer Lawrence, all these young women that I've worked with who basically were child actors like I was a child actor, and I feel very protective of them because even though I think I have managed to get through the process, relatively sanely, I have my scars," Foster said. "And I hope to be in some ways a member of their family that's out there protecting them."

""I think that's what these awards do," Foster said. "Yeah, they're about looking into the patterns of your career and seeing how they express you and how they expressed you psychologically. I'm an actress so that is what I do -- you're attracted to material, you show your insides, the things that ? you move people and that has an effect not just on other people but on you as well. That's what we do. It's all about our psychology."

7. She finds cable TV an "interesting" outlet for her directing projects.

"I do hope that I'm directing more," Foster told reporters. "I really want to focus on that more because I spent a lot of years with too many years in between my movies. And my films are very difficult to get off the ground -- they're personal films, they're hard to get off the ground. But there are also other avenues -- cable is very interesting to me now and I've worked a little bit in television and I'm enjoying that."

8. Her mother told her that her career would end as early as age 18.

"From the time I was little, my mom prepared me for the fact that my career would be over by the time I was 18 and she would say, 'When you're 18, and when you get older, what are you going to be -- are you going to be a doctor? Are you going to be a lawyer? You know, when your career is over, what are you going to be?'" Foster said.

"And there was a part of me that just assumed I would never grow up and be an actor," she added. "I'm very surprised that I ended up doing the same job that I did from the time I was three."

9. Her favorite among her films - "Little Man Tate."

"Interestingly, you know, you can't really choose your performances, you can't really choose your movies, because you love them all for different reasons and some are better than others," Foster said. "But you know the first movie that I directed, 'Little Man Tate,' it's just special."

"It's like the first novel you write," she said. "It's the most you and in some ways, painfully you, because you see all the warts and all the lack of confidence. But it was such an important moment of my life and that's the one that brings tears to my eyes."

10. She has a hard time watching herself on screen as a child / teen star.

"Look, any of the movies that were shot doing my adolescence when I was chubby and had pimples and had a weird voice and made faces -- I have a hard time looking at those," Foster said. "But other people don't mind them. I just have a hard time looking at them."